Handheld field maintenance tools are known. Such tools are highly useful in the process control and measurement industry to allow operators to conveniently communicate with and/or interrogate field devices in a given process installation. Examples of such process installations include petroleum, pharmaceutical, chemical, pulp and other processing installations. In such installations, the process control and measurement network may include tens or even hundreds of various field devices which periodically require maintenance to ensure that such devices are functioning properly and/or calibrated. Moreover, when one or more errors in the process control and measurement installation is detected, the use of a handheld field maintenance tool allows technicians to quickly diagnose such errors in the field.
One such device is sold under the trade designation Model 275 HART® Communicator available from Fisher-Rosemount Systems, Inc., of Eden Prairie, Minn. HART® is a registered trademark of the HART® Communication Foundation. The Model 275 provides a host of important functions and capabilities and generally allows highly effective field maintenance. Field maintenance tools, such as the model 275, are used extensively by field technicians in a number of contexts. First, field technicians will actually carry the handheld tool into the field and use it to interact with field devices. Additionally, technicians will also use the handheld tool in the laboratory to interact with field devices while on a laboratory benchtop, for example. Finally, there may be some instances in the field where a technician must use both hands in order to effectively interact with a field device. In these circumstances, it is desirable to allow the handheld tool to be mountable to any of a variety of surfaces that are encountered in the field. Providing handheld field maintenance tools with the ability to be easily mounted and/or utilized in these varying circumstances would vastly facilitate the utility of such tools. Moreover, providing such features in a manner that could be added or removed to/from the tool as needed by the technician would also be desirable.